


graphite smudged

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24791815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: Jack’s got a pencil and paper with him, and nothing better to do than try to capture his favorite subjects on paper.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	graphite smudged

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little tiny fic about Jack drawing his loves okay? It's short and self indulgent and it was supposed to have a drawing to go with it but I'm on the struggle bus so maybe I'll post that later.

Jack is never happier than when he’s out with Davey and Katherine, with nothing better to do than enjoy each other’s company. It’s a nice day, one of the lucky handful of spring days where it actually feels like _spring –_ no biting breeze or sweltering sun. The three of them are in the park, along with a gaggle of other newsies taking the opportunity to run off some energy.

Davey and Katherine are sitting together, maybe a little too close to be proper for a public place but that has never stopped them, reading a book. They’re both completely engrossed in the book and their conversation, like they’re in a bubble that doesn’t include the rest of the world.

Jack is a few feet away, trying to have a conversation with Crutchie, but his eyes keep drifting back to Katherine and Davey. He can hardly be blamed, he figures, because they are his two favorite people in the world and they are _gorgeous_. Especially together.

Oh, screw it. He’s got a pencil and paper with him, and nothing better to do than try to capture his favorite subjects on paper.

He’s just getting started when Race throws himself onto the ground next to Jack, bumping their shoulders against each other as he sits down. “What’cha drawin’, Jackie?”

“Nothin’ if you keep knockin’ into me,” says Jack. He makes a point of elbowing Race back. He nods toward Davey and Katherine. “S’gonna be them.”

“Don’t it ever bother you?” Race asks, following Jack’s gaze. “Davey all over your girl like that?”

Jack hums. “They’s just readin’.”

When he turns back toward Race, the younger boy is looking at him with an expression Jack can’t quite read. He just stares at Jack for a long moment, eyes narrowed, before he exhales through his nose and schools his expression back into something a little more neutral. “S’good you’re secure, Jack. Lotsa guys’d be real protective of a gal like Plumber.”

“Kath wouldn’t take kindly to me playing the jealous lover over her best friend,” Jack says dismissively. “An’ anyway, Davey’s –“ He pauses, trying to find a socially appropriate way to imply to Race, who would likely be fairly understanding, that Davey isn’t a threat to his relationship with Kath because he’s _part_ of his relationship with Kath.

“Davey’s what, Jack?” Race prompts, because Jack has apparently been silent a little too long, staring over at Kath and Davey.

“Dave’s – we’re close to Dave,” Jack finishes, a little awkwardly. He wrinkles his nose; that hadn’t come out right.

Race raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay. You’re in a weird mood today, Jackie.”

“Hmm. Be in a better one if you’d let me be to draw.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Race shoves Jack’s shoulder. “Do your thing, you’re bein’ borin’ anyway.” And then Race gets up and moves to Jack’s other side to talk to Crutchie instead.

Jack looks back down at his paper – he’d just gotten the beginnings of a sketch started when Race interrupted him. The loosest gestures of his sweethearts stare up at him from the page, just a vague sense of pose and the beginnings of the book they’re holding between them.

He glances up at Katherine and David, who are still completely lost in each other and their book. A soft smile on his face, Jack sets back into drawing.

Katherine’s skirt is spread in the grass in front of her legs, her feet free in case she needs to get up quickly. He doesn’t have anything colored to capture the way the purple of her skirt compliments her red-brown hair, but it definitely catches Jack’s eye. Instead of color, he opts to focus on the way the light is falling over her, the shadows cast by the tree they’re under.

David’s hair is a little wilder than usual today, because before he’d settled in with Katherine, he’d been coaxed by the younger boys into a slightly wild and high-contact game of tag that left him flushed and breathless and fluffy-haired. Jack catches him smiling softly at Kath and knows _that_ is the moment he needs to capture in his sketch.

When he’s done, his sweethearts are there on the page, captured heart and soul deep in a moment with each other.

It feels very personal – a quiet moment of intimacy, captured by a lover – and when Race leans on Jack again he clutches his sketch to his chest instinctively.

“What, can’t I see?” Race teases. “It looked almost done.”

“It is done,” says Jack, still hugging his sketchbook. “And no, you can’t. It’s for Kathy.”

“Don’t mean nobody else can look at it,” says Race, rolling his eyes. He moves to grab at Jack’s sketchbook, and the older boy scrambles back.

“Race, no.”

“Okay, okay.” Race puts his hands up in defeat. “Ya weirdo. I can’t imagine what you’d put in a sketch of your gal with another guy you wouldn’t wanna show.”

“How I draw my sweethearts is my business,” says Jack, his gaze fixed on the grass in front of him.

“Sweethearts, huh?”

“You got a problem?”

“Nah. ‘Splains a lot, though.” Race nudges Jack. He looks up and meets his friend’s eye. “Means I don’t have to worry so much about you payin’ so much attention to Davey.”

“What?” says Jack, startled.

“You an’ he are real close, _real_ close, but you’ve been seein’ Kathy. Didn’t wan’cha leadin’ him on and breakin’ his heart, you know?” Race says simply, shrugging. “But if you’s seein’ each other proper like, I don’t have to worry so much about him.”

“How come you was worried, huh?” Jack says. “You think I’d do that to him?”

“I don’t think you’d’a done it on purpose,” says Race. “But I reckon you don’t always know how – how people feels about’cha, you know?”

“Speakin’ from experience, Racer?” Jack tries to make it a joke, but there’s an edge of sincerity he can’t hide.

“Not personally.”

Jack pats Race’s knee. “Thanks for lookin’ out for Davey, Race.”

“Somebody’s gotta,” Race says, shrugging. He bumps his shoulder against Jack’s. “Hey, Jackie, they’re lookin’ at’cha. Why don’cha go show off your pretty drawin’ you won’t show me?”

Jack looks up, and sure enough both Davey and Katherine are looking over at him, talking quietly with small smiles on their faces.

“You two talkin’ shit about me behind my back?” Jack says, getting up and walking over to where they’re sitting. “I can _tell_ you’re talking shit about me.”

“When have we ever done that?” Davey says, deadpan.

“Yeah,” agrees Katherine. “We usually do it to your face!”

Jack falls onto the grass in front of them, laughing. “Yeah, that’s how I know that look.”

“What’cha got there, Jackie-mine?” Davey asks, reaching for Jack’s sketchbook.

“Couldn’t take my eyes off’a you,” says Jack. He hands the sketchbook over, turning it so that the picture will be right side up.

Kath tips her head onto David’s shoulder to look at the sketch with him. “Oh, Jack.”

A little embarrassed, Jack reaches for her hand and tangles their fingers together, playing a little with her fingertips. “Well, I love you guys and stuff.”

David chuckles. “Yeah, we love you and stuff too.”


End file.
